Technical Specification to support certification of ISO 22301 published

On the 1st of December 2014, ISO together with IEC published a new Technical Specification called ISO/IEC TS 17021-6.

ISO/IEC TS 17021-6:2014 complements the existing requirements of ISO/IEC 17021:2011. It includes specific competence requirements for personnel involved in the certification process for business continuity management systems (BCMS) and the ISO 22301.

The project leader of this work, Wolfgang Mahr, explains:

"It has been recognized that the competence and experience of third-party management system auditor teams is a significant element that can affect the quality and reliability of certification processes and decisions and may therefore affect the perceptions of the value that ISO management system standards provide."

The scope of this document is not limited to the competence of the auditors only, but covers other certification personnel as well: personnel conducting the application review to determine audit team competence required, to select the audit team members, and to determine the audit time; personnel reviewing audit reports and making certification decisions; and audit team leaders, as described in the Annex A Required knowledge and skills of ISO/IEC 17021.

Dr. Stefan Tangen, Convenor of the Communication Group of the ISO technical committee that developed the new specification, states:

“ISO/IEC TS 17021-1 is a joint project set up between ISO/TC 223 and CASCO. Now when the document has been finilized it expands the ISO 22300 series as well as the ISO 17021 series. Its common practice within the ISO management system standards committees to work togeteher with CASCO and similar documents have previously been developed for ISO 9001 and ISO 14001"

ISO/TS 17021-6:2014, Conformity assessment – Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems – Part 6: Competence requirements for auditing and certification of business continuity management systems, is available from ISO national member institutes (see the complete list with contact details). It may also be obtained directly from the ISO Central Secretariat, price 38 Swiss francs respectively through the ISO Store or by contacting the Marketing, Communication & Information department.